jobs - townnewsbloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/bgdailynews... · angela blackburn of the...

JobsDevelopment, employment and training

in southcentral Kentucky

•Tourism industry an economic driver across area. Page 5

•Region continues to be a hub for agribusiness. Page 8

Second in a four-part seriesComing April 23: A look at the region’s future.

BOWLING GREEN/SOUTHCENTRAL KENTUCKY

THRIVEA proile of a growing, vibrant community

By CHARLES A. MASON

[email protected]

The cluttered and clunky look of the Kentucky Career Center in Bowling Green is gone.

It has been replaced by a new, streamlined and open KCC office. The so-called “unemployment office” is history, though officials still struggle with the stigma built over years.

“People still think it’s the unemployment office,” said Board Chairman Ron Sowell of the South Central Workforce Development Board.

Procedures surrounding use of workforce money are being streamlined, too.

Recently, the South Central Workforce Development Board approved several pol-icies setting up a new pro-cess for federally funded job training grants, buttoning

down the specifics on the money to be spent on the career sectors of construc-tion, manufacturing, health care, hospitality, business and professional and trans-portation and logistics.

The policies set up caps on the training money, pri-orities for service delivery and created a new paper-work check-off accountabil-ity process.

Both the streamlined facil-ity and the new policies and

procedures are main pil-lars in the new way work-force services are being restructured for job seek-ers in Allen, Barren, Butler, Edmonson, Hart, Logan, Metcalfe, Monroe, Simpson and Warren counties.

Efforts continue to finance and build a new $6 million center in the city, perhaps next to the old L&N Railroad station, where land has been donated by Warren County. The idea is to put under one roof representatives of the more than a dozen entities that deal with job seekers in the region.

Until then, however, the existing building – with a non-handicapped accessible ground floor – on Chestnut Street continues to make the transition from the “old unemployment office” to a modern job training and referral site run by ResCare Workforce Services, which has been the direct service provider for the workforce board since late last year.

Reversing the stigma of the office has been a goal of local officials who most recently saw the Kentucky Office of Employment and Training leave both the Bowling Green and Glasgow KCC offices under a state reorganization plan that placed the unemploy-ment claims service online. The Glasgow office will be streamlined like the Bowling Green office once OET has finished removing its equip-ment, said KCC Project Manager Angela Blackburn, who led some members of the workforce board on a recent Bowling Green facil-ity tour.

Blackburn showed them an entrance area that had been made more open and inviting, including a large room where job seekers can look over posters of local job sectors, see their annu-al average salaries and their educational requirements. It is the same information developed for local school children on the construction, manufacturing, health care, hospitality, business and professional and transporta-tion and logistics job sectors in the SCK Launch program developed by the Bowling Green Area Chamber of Commerce.

Blackburn also talked about a new folder given everyone who comes inside, which includes a comment card. Workers at the cen-ter are keeping track of the comments to get real-time feedback on the office staff’s performance, Blackburn said.

Moving into the main part of the Bowling Green downtown office, Blackburn showed the visitors a newly carpeted area, workers’ sta-tions and private offices. When RWS took over from

the Kentucky Education Workforce and Development Cabinet, the old carpet was soaked from a water leak and needed to be replaced, she said.

The inaccessible basement houses the offices of Donald “Mac” McGlothlin, KCC disabled veterans outreach and programs specialist, a lunch room for employ-ees on the main floor and an electronically secured employee entrance.

McGlothlin said he sim-ply takes his laptop upstairs to meet with veterans with accessibility issues. The downstairs offices allow pri-vacy needed for veterans’ discussions and workshops, he said.

Military veterans and their eligible spouses, low-in-come individuals and those with basic skills deficien-cies are given top priority for the federal Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, adult and dislocat-ed worker eligibility, indi-vidual training accounts and on-the-job training for WIOA-eligible adults and dislocated workers.

“Veterans have priority service, no matter what,” said Lori Strumpf, a con-sultant hired by the city and county to work on the work-force policies and other mat-ters.

The workforce board added a section to the last mentioned policy, outlin-ing a performance goal of at least 51 percent for those groups identified as a prior-ity.

The priority will be moni-tored by the city of Bowling Green, which acts as the workforce board’s fiscal agent.

The policies also cover youth eligibility.

One of the measures that the Kentucky Education and Workforce Development Cabinet cited the Barren River Area Development District on in a funds dis-pute was BRADD’s autho-rization and distribution of federal training money. BRADD paid about $91,000 to the state for the disal-lowed training costs and that money was returned by the state to the regional work-force board’s budget.

The training contracts will only be approved for indi-viduals seeking jobs in the six identified job sectors.

A workforce board director can authorize an exception, Strumpf explained.

The training has a $3,000 cap for a fiscal year and a $6,000 cap for the lifetime of the contract.

“We became a scholar-ship entity for several years from what we’ve seen in the audits,” said work-force board member Craig Browning.

If an individual stops training and doesn’t obtain the certification, the work-force board can ask that the money be paid back.

“You are not a collection agency. This shows due diligence to the taxpayers’ money,” Strumpf told the workforce board.

Training funds now require a separate purchase order as part of the paper-work process.

JOBS INFORMATION SERVES DUAL ROLE

A jobs information data-base built for school chil-dren may also help adults for years to come.

Meredith Robinson, chief operating officer of the Bowling Green Area Chamber of Commerce, said a new Kentucky job search network needs to capture information on annual sal-aries, benefits and open-ings for the state’s employ-ers. The chamber is put-ting together a pilot project designed to bring real-time, market-driven job informa-tion to employers.

“There is not a state system that is capturing data from all employers,” Robinson said of Kentucky.

The chamber has already developed posters on the job sectors and they can be found in the KCC offices in Bowling Green.

The information show-ing the types of jobs in each sector, educational require-ments and average annu-al salaries was developed for the eighth-grade career exploration program SCK Launch and can also benefit adults.

“It doesn’t matter if you are 14 years old or 65 years old – the job sector doesn’t change,” Robinson said. The figures anticipate employer demand for the next decade.

Robinson hopes the SCK Launch will lead to inter-

2 Sunday, April 16, 2017 Thrive Daily News, Bowling Green, Kentucky

Choosing a funeral home is

a decision that many families

face at some point, for their

own pre-arrangements or on

behalf of deceased family

members. This can be a very

emotional process as choosing

a funeral home often provides

the final closure for those left

behind. When loved ones are in

a state of shock and grief, the

task can become even more challenging.

Funeral homes are often selected because they are close to home, have

provided service to the family in the past or have been recommended by a trusted

friend. While this might be a

useful way of finding a funeral

home during a distressing time,

it is smart to learn about

processes and options before

you or your family actually

need to research and choose a

funeral home. Armed with the

right knowledge, this

experience can be remembered

as a positive one.

At J.C. Kirby & Son Funeral Chapels, we offer a wide selection of options that

will help you make the best choices for your loved one. J.C. Kirby & Son

Funeral Chapels are more than just a funeral home, we are a unique, locally

owned, hometown funeral home, that sincerely cares about providing the people

of this area with the absolute best quality in funeral services available. J.C. Kirby

& Son Funeral Chapels’ goal since the beginning has been to provide the utmost

in funeral services in the most professional and dignified manner possible.

270-843-3111 www.jckirbyandson.com

820 Lovers Lane Bowling Green, KY

W e are a unique hom etown funeral hom e that cares about providing our com munity w ith the best quality funeral and crem ation services!

K aytlynn K irby C lark, K evin & L ynn K irby.

F am ily Owned & Operated F or Over 5 3 years.

832 Broadway

820 Lovers Lane

STREAMLINED

CHARLES A. MASON/[email protected]

Angela Blackburn of the Kentucky Career Center in Bowling Green shows a new intake folder for clients, including a new comment card, during a tour by members of the South Central Workforce Development Board.

See JOBS, 3

With new look, policies, Kentucky Career Center helps people find jobs

MORE INFORMATION

Open positions in the 10-county area in the next five years are estimated at 22,224 with 18,122 of those jobs expected in the replacement demands as an aging work-force heads to retirements. The five-year job growth expected is 4,102, about one-half of the anticipated 10-year growth de-mand.

generational learning much in the same manner “The Leader in Me” did in the city and county elementary schools.

When the “7 Habits of Highly Effective People” were introduced into the ele-mentary school curriculums in the Warren County Public Schools and Bowling Green Independent School District, parents found themselves hearing the adages in con-versations at home.

“That’s when we have arrived. When students can have that conversation with authority – about jobs – with their parents or siblings,” Robinson said.

PEOPLE NEED FOUND OUTSIDE REGION FOR JOBS

A projected demand of 45,110 jobs in the 10-coun-ty region over the next 10 years means local officials are going to have to look at job candidates outside of the region, Robinson said.

“We have got to find the people. We have to get peo-ple to move here,” she said. “We have more jobs than people.”

The types of jobs available also need applicants to have mechanical aptitudes and possess the ability to learn quickly their new tasks.

Robinson said research shows technology changes impact the workplace every 12 to 18 months.

Open positions in the 10-county area in the next five years are estimated at 22,224 with 18,122 of those jobs expected in the replacement demands as an aging workforce heads to retirement. The five-year job growth expected is 4,102, about one-half of the anticipated 10-year growth demand.

Within a 50-mile radius of the 10-county region there is an estimated 59,673 open positions in the six job sec-tors identified by the local chamber.

The statistics are provided by the Kentucky Center for Education and Workforce

Statistics, according to the jobs report.

There are currently 5,787 open jobs in the 10-county region. There are 130,383 employed in the region earn-ing an average annual wage of $38,000.

The workforce board has the task of putting in place the mechanisms to help peo-ple become employed in the region.

In a planning doc-ument prepared by Heartland Communications C o n s u l t a n t s o f Elizabethtown, the plan list-ed six considerations for the workforce board in perform-ing that task:

•Understand the dynamics of the regional labor market, with a deep understanding of needs and solutions for each major business sector of the regional economy.

•Investigate and imple-ment best practices in addressing needs.

•Recruit regional employ-ers as partners in education and training, not just end users of products of educa-tional and workforce devel-opment programs.

•Inspire the public to con-tinually acquire new skills at all age levels.

•Motivate discouraged workers to return to the workforce and to training and education pathways.

•Provide leadership and stewardship for funds and programs of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act and other funds that the board acquires to meet its strategic goals.

The workforce board master plan noted Warren County has a labor participa-tion rate in the civilian pop-ulation of 16 years and older of 66 percent, the region 60.2 percent and Kentucky 59.4 percent.

Manufacturing employs the most people, 24,575 with health care and social assistance second with 15,047. Retail trade employs 14,987 and accommodation and food services employs 11,143. All other sectors employ fewer than 10,000 people, the workforce mas-ter plan noted.

Robinson said the need for good, real-time workforce information is critical to the

process in the region.

FLORIDA IS ONE JOBS INFORMATION MODEL TO STUDY

The University of West Florida Haas Center helped to build CareerSource Florida, one model the chamber is looking at, Robinson said.

The Florida network includes 24 local work-force development boards, the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity and 100 career centers through-out the state. Florida’s pop-ulation of 12 million is three times that of Kentucky. Both Kentucky and Florida cur-rently have unemployment rates of about 5 percent.

Robinson said Texas is also a national leader in put-ting together a jobs network.

Texas Workforce Solutions consists of the Texas Workforce Commission and a statewide network of 28 Workforce Development Boards for regional planning and service delivery, their contracted service providers and community partners.

KENTUCKY’S JOBS MODEL NEEDS IMPROVEMENT

Kentucky has job informa-tion provided by Kentucky Career Centers tied to 15 area development districts. Bowling Green has been identified by the state as one of a dozen hub KCC cities.

Students need to have something that they can take to employers to show they have a background for work, Robinson said.

Students can qualify for the Kentucky National Career Readiness Certificate.

The Kentucky NCRC is a credential based upon the ACT WorkKeys assess-ments that substantiate to employers that an individu-al possesses the basic work-place skills required for 21st-century jobs, accord-ing to the Kentucky Career Centers website.

Even if an individual has a high school diploma, or GED or a postsecondary degree, the Kentucky NCRC further verifies the work-er can handle tasks that are common and vital in today’s workplaces and verifies to

employers anywhere in the United States that an indi-vidual has essential core employability skills in read-ing, mathematics and locat-ing information, the KCC website noted.

The skills include read-ing for information, where the student comprehends work-related reading mate-rials from memos and bul-letins to policy manuals and government regulations; applied mathematics, where a student applies mathemat-ical reasoning to work-relat-ed problems; and locating

information, where the stu-dent uses information from such materials as diagrams, floor plans, tables, forms, graphs and charts.

Robinson said local employers find the posses-sion of so-called “soft skills” important, and those job candidates equipped with those skills have a leg up on other applicants.

When the manufacturing sector options are studied, students and adults find out that a stock and materials handler can acquire a job with a high school educa-

tion and expect to earn an average annual salary of $23,400. With a two-year associate degree a student or adult can qualify to inter-view for an industrial main-tenance technician job that carries with it an average annual salary of $55,300. A bachelor’s degree can lead to possible employment as an industrial engineer with an average annual salary of $84,100.

– Follow business reporter Charles A. Mason on Twitter @BGDNbusiness or visit bgdailynews.com.

Daily News, Bowling Green, Kentucky Thrive Sunday, April 16, 2017 3

From Page 2

JOBS

DAILY NEWS FILE PHOTO

Myiah Graham, 14, then a Bowling Green Junior High School student, tries out a welding technology demonstration during the irst day of SCK Launch in 2016 at the National Corvette Museum Motorsports Park.

The Kentucky NCRC is a credential based upon the ACT WorkKeys assessments that substantiate to employers that an individual possesses the basic workplace skills required for 21st-century jobs, according to the Kentucky Career Centers website. Even if an individual has a high school diploma, or GED or a postsecondary degree, the Kentucky NCRC further veriies the worker can handle tasks that are common and vital in today’s workplaces and veriies to employers anywhere in the United States that an individual has essential core employability skills in reading, mathematics and locating information, the KCC website noted.


W arren Cou nty Preschool

(3-and 4-year-old children) Register at any Warren County School

You will need: • Current Kentucky immunization certificate • Proof of residency (Electric bill, etc.) • State-issued birth certificate or reliable proof of age and identification • Physical examinations

For more information, call Warren County Preschool,

270-781-5150

By CHARLES A. MASON

[email protected]

The Bowling Green region’s medical facilities and services landscape is rapidly changing.

A medical school partner-ship between the University of Kentucky College of Medicine, The Medical Center and Western Kentucky University is poised to help alleviate a physician shortage in the region, allow WKU faculty access to medical research opportunities, demonstrate a community commitment to smart growth and help keep the area’s best and brightest in Warren County, officials have said.

A GROWING SECTORThe Bowling Green area

is tapping into one of the hottest job sectors in the nation – health care.

Critical shortages of nurs-es, doctors, surgeons and other medical practitioners are making it difficult to staff a health care services population that grows daily with the retirement of the baby boomer generation.

A publication from the Bowling Green Area Chamber of Commerce noted that registered nurse, with an average annual sal-ary of $56,800, is one of the top 10 positions in demand in health care here.

Western is doing what it can to alleviate the nurs-ing shortage by doubling the number of nurses it graduates thanks to a part-nership with Med Center Health to construct The Medical Center-WKU Health Sciences Complex on the Med Center Health Campus. The building, which also houses other WKU medical-related pro-grams, opened in 2013.

In some cases it takes a while to develop a medical professional to put into the job pipeline.

For example, according to the U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook, an anesthesiologist needs to earn a doctoral or profes-sional degree and serve an internship/residency before moving into the field.

Just in the anesthesiolo-gist field alone, there are a projected 5,000 to 9,999 new jobs and a projected growth rate of 20 to 29 per-cent. Those professionals, according to 2015 median pay, can earn $75,000 or more annually.

“Employment of health care occupations is pro-jected to grow 19 percent from 2017 to 2024, much faster than the average for all occupations, add-ing about 2.3 million new jobs,” according to the BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook.

“Health care occupations will add more jobs than any other group of occu-pations,” the bureau report noted.

“This growth is expect-

ed due to an aging popu-lation and because feder-al health insurance reform should increase the number of individuals who have access to health insurance,” the report said. A recent effort by President Donald Trump and the Republican-controlled U.S. Congress to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, fizzled recent-ly.

The median annual wage for health care practitioners and technical occupations – such as registered nurses, physicians and surgeons, and dental hygienists – was $62,610 in May 2015, which was higher than the median annual wage for all occupations in the economy of $36,200, the Occupational Handbook noted.

Health care support occu-pations – such as home health aides, occupation-al therapy assistants and medical transcriptionists – had a median annual wage of $27,040 in May 2015, lower than the median annual wage for all occu-pations in the economy, the handbook introduction noted.

INDUSTRIAL BONDS FINANCE MED SCHOOL BUILDING

Warren County Fiscal Court on March 24 approved $29 million in hospital industrial bonds.

“We’re very proud any time we can advance health care in our community,” said Warren County Judge-Executive Mike Buchanon.

UK announced in February it would expand

its medical school through a partnership with the hos-pital and WKU. Medical school students will attend classes here in Bowling Green in a building on the campus of The Medical Center. The medical degree will be conferred by UK, and a certain number of slots in the program here

will be available first to WKU students.

“It’s not every day that you’re able to get a med-ical school in your com-munity and this is a big accomplishment,” said Dr. Don Brown, The Medical Center’s director of medi-cal education. “It raises the bar for the practice of med-icine.”

Ron Sowell, execu-tive vice president of Med Center Health, said the project includes a two-story building with room for the four-year medical school. There will be physicians’ offices and a new 800-vehi-cle parking garage.

Sowell said the collabo-ration allows UK to grow its program and train more physicians for Kentucky.

“We have a need for phy-sicians,” he said.

The new med school is scheduled to open in the summer of 2018.

NEW MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL AREA ALONG LOVERS LANE

Med Center Health also in early March confirmed a 10-acre, $4 million pur-

chase from developer David Chandler’s 103 acres for The Hub project next to the Lovers Lane Soccer Complex on the former Roy G. Cooksey Jr. estate.

The Hub will include a Med Center Health pro-fessional presence, new restaurants, a bank, a new

four-story hotel and sin-gle-family housing.

The Lovers Lane area is becoming a major medical and professional services sector on both sides of the road with the announce-

ment of the Chandler devel-opment.

Fairview Community Health Center recently pur-chased land in Mount Victor Olde Towne off Lovers Lane to build a facility that will house the family practice offered by its main building and satellite clin-ics, which include its adult and prenatal services.

In the same gener-al area off Lovers Lane across the road Graves-Gilbert Clinic has received a certificate of need from Kentucky to construct a new ambulatory surgery center next door to Western Kentucky Orthopaedic and Neurosurgical Associates in partnership with HCA-owned TriStar Greenview Regional Hospital in Bowling Green.

GGC and WKONA merged in recent years. Graves-Gilbert also is merging with OHP Work Care/SouthernCare Walk-In Clinics.


New medical school, hospital expansions on the horizon

IMAGE COURTESY OF THE MEDICAL CENTER

A rendering illustrates plans for the planned Medical Center-WKU Health Sciences Complex on the Med Center Health Campus.

DAILY NEWS FILE PHOTO

Andrea Reid of Loretto (left) and Kathryn Brown of Richmond, both Western Kentucky University nursing students, practice CPR in 2013 on a dummy in class at the WKU Medical Center Health Science Complex.

TO YOUR HEALTH

“We’re very proud any

time we can advance health

care in our community.”

Mike Buchanon

Warren County judge-executive

Direct Lines (with after hours voice mail): News Department: 270-783-3228 Classified Advertising: 270-783-3232

Subscriber Service: 270-783-3200 www.bgdailynews.com

By DEBORAH HIGHLAND

[email protected]

Taxes paid by tourists less-en Warren Countians’ state and local tax burden by near-ly $1,000 per household, according to one official.

Tourism was respon-sible for $13.7 billion to Kentucky’s economy in 2015, the latest numbers available from the state’s Tourism, Arts & Heritage Cabinet. New numbers will be released next month. The industry generated more than $1.43 billion in tax rev-enues in 2015.

“It is a huge driver of the economy in Kentucky,” said Hank Phillips, president and chief executive officer of the Kentucky Travel Industry Association, a trade organi-zation that represents all seg-ments of Kentucky’s tourism industry. “It is the third-larg-est industry in the state, and people don’t realize how much of an economic con-tribution that tourism makes to the state.

“For every dollar that the state invests in advertising Kentucky, their research shows that $150 comes back in visitor expenditures. For every dollar invested, there are $16 in local and state tax revenues that come back from that investment. The return on tourism invest-ment is huge both in terms of money coming into the economy and much-needed local and state tax revenue,” Phillips said.

While all nine tourism regions in the state generated revenue increases year over year from 2014 to 2015, the Cave, Lakes & Corvettes Region – Allen, Barren, Butler, Edmonson, Hart, Logan, Metcalfe, Monroe, Simpson and Warren coun-ties – showed the sec-ond-largest increase of 6.9 percent from more than $621 million in 2014 total travel expenditures to more than $664 million in 2015, according to the Economic Impact of Kentucky’s Travel and Tourism Industry report released last spring. A new report will be released next month, and industry experts are optimistic for another year of gains.

CAVES, LAKES & CORVETTES“I don’t have any direct

knowledge or any way of predicting an increase, but I will be surprised if there is a not at least a moderate increase,” Phillips said. “I can tie that to a couple of interesting things. If you take the name of that region, the Caves, Lakes & Corvettes Region, the name encom-passes the reason. Last year was the 100th anniversary of the national parks. There was a big push to commemorate that historic anniversary.

“The other thing is in terms of lakes, outdoor recreation especially in Kentucky has always been popular, but there has been a growth in popularity.

“The Corvette museum and the assembly plant, today people travel to have authentic experiences. There is nothing more authentic then the Corvette museum. To me, if we put together all the assets of that region, it points to another good year. I’m optimistic,” Phillips said.

Mammoth Cave National Park visitation increased 8 percent from 2015 to 2016.

Cave visitation rose 10 percent in 2016 from 2015

with 468,784 cave visitors in 2016. That’s 42,000 more visitors than in 2015.

The park is currently working to get a Dark Sky Park designation from the International Dark-Sky Association to attract tour-ists interested in getting away from the light pollu-tion of the city to stargaze.

“Mammoth Cave is this special area that is very dark at night. We are fair-ly rural. We don’t have a lot of light pollution,” park Superintendent Sarah Craighead told the Daily News in January. “You have the opportunity to see the stars, to see the Milky Way. We have some pret-ty good night skies around Mammoth Cave.”

The Corvette museum saw a significant spike in visi-tors in 2014 after a sinkhole opened up in February 2014 inside the museum, swallow-ing eight prized Corvettes and generating international headlines.

In 2014, publicity gener-ated by the sinkhole com-bined with the museum’s 20th anniversary celebra-tion and the opening of the NCM Motorsports Park drew 251,258 people to the museum. The following year, the number dropped to 220,665. Last year, museum attendance grew to 228,363 people, according to Katie Frassinelli, museum spokes-woman.

This year, to commemo-rate the third anniversary of the sinkhole, the museum is restoring a 1962 Corvette. Visitors will be able to watch the restoration as it takes place. Visitors can also still peek down into part of the sinkhole and the muse-um continues to sell jars of sinkhole dirt and rock. The museum has sold $40,000 worth of jars of sinkhole dirt, Frassinelli said.

The museum employs more than 100 people.

By mid-April at the NCM Motorsports Park, a new go-kart track is expected to draw visitors from around the region. The activity is open to anyone who meets the height requirements.

“They’re fast,” Frassinelli said. The go-karts can hit speeds of over 45 mph.

“It’s something anyone can show up and pay to take a ride,” she said. “It’s some-

thing the whole family can do.”

The attraction is also fun for corporate and business team building and corporate hospitality, Frassinelli said.

AREA HOTELS SEE HIGH OCCUPANCY

All of the attractions and Bowling Green’s event-rich calendar have been keeping hotels brimming with guests.

“I think the occupancy is pretty stable throughout the branded hotels,” said Drue Eberhardt, a board mem-ber of the Bowling Green Area Lodging Association, and the general manager of Holiday Inn Express.

Any occupancy rate of 85 percent or higher is consid-ered successful in the indus-try, Eberhardt said.

“We surpass that,” he said.From car shows to band

competitions, Western Kentucky University and high school graduations in addition to events at Beech Bend and corporate visitors, it is not unusual for Bowling Green hotels to have city-wide sellouts, he said.

“People come up to see Mammoth Cave and they stay in Bowling Green. Companies in town provide steady business through-out the week. A lot of peo-ple come in for Beech Bend. There’s a lot of cor-porate visitors. That brings in more business travelers,” Eberhardt said.

“Every year there seems to be a new hotel popping up somewhere,” he said. “Even with that, the market is still stable.”

The tourism and hospital-ity industry is thriving here for people who want to work in the field, he said.

“For me, I started out working front desk while I was in college. I did some event planning and worked at Hilton Garden Inn for a couple of years, then I came to this property. After about two years, I moved up to the general manager of the Holiday Inn Express. I’m 27 now. In a matter of five or six years, I’ve had a lot of growth opportunities that in my opinion the industry can offer,” he said. “It’s defi-nitely something you have to work your way up on. But the opportunities are there. If


Tourism and hospitality a mammoth industry in Kentucky

See TOURISM, 6

DAILY NEWS FILE PHOTOS

Above left: Lost River Cave draws tourists who can ride a boat on an underground river, but the cave also hosts multiple events each year. Above right: Looking at the planes at Aviation Heritage Park in Basil Grifin Park is free. Below: The Hyatt Place Hotel, which is adjacent to Western Kentucky University, opened in 2015.

you are a good worker, you can get to where you want to be.”

Jane Simmons, an instruc-tor and adviser for the hotel, restaurant and tourism manage-ment majors at WKU, said the job market for WKU students entering the hospitality field is healthy.

“There are jobs available, not just in the hotel business but in the tourism business with events, different venues,” Simmons said. “It is a good, healthy market, and they can find jobs. I have some that will be graduating in May, and they are already interview-ing for jobs.”

SPENDING EXPECTED TO GROWLaura Brooks, communica-

tions director for the Kentucky tourism cabinet, said she expects to see growth in tourism spend-ing year over year from 2015 to 2016 in the upcoming May report.

“It’s grown each year, and we would anticipate the same trend,” Brooks said.

Vicki Fitch, executive direc-tor of the Bowling Green Area Convention and Visitors Bureau, is expecting to see growth local-ly.

“I expect we would likely show gains,” Fitch said. “I’m able to track a little bit with the hotel sector. Those have positive numbers year over year from what I’m seeing. That’s the most

concrete area. The attractions have done well. I would be sur-prised if we didn’t see that we had growth.”

The growth not only helps the tax base, it also creates jobs.

“It means a lot of jobs all the way from the direct jobs like tour guides, housekeepers and front desk clerks to much higher pay-ing jobs of manager and execu-tive directors and people running the businesses.

“Shopping is such an import-ant part of a tourist experience. It is one of the areas that a vis-itor spends the most amount of money when they are in our area. Visitors are leaving their money here in our community, not just at the hotels and attractions. It’s a lot deeper than that.

“Then there is a residual effect,

the carryover effect where for instance a person who owns a shop, the money that the visitor brings in is helping their quality of life in Bowling Green where they are able to buy cars, furni-ture” and other items.

“If tourism did not exist, each household in Warren County would have paid $963 more in state and local taxes in 2015 to replace the taxes generated by tourist spending,” Fitch said.

– Follow Assistant City Editor Deborah Highland on Twitter @BGDNCrimebeat or visit bgdailynews.com.


Celebrating 70 Years of bringing News/Talk Radio to South Central K entucky

Celebrating our 57 th Year

Talk Radio to

Enlighten, Inform and Entertain

93WKCT

Sure, we’ve seen some changes since

1947. Prices are skyrocketing. No more

“pony prizes” or free water. Modern

radio technology seems like science

fiction when compared to then. And

the days of bringing live bears into

crowded studios are long gone!

But one thing remains the same.

WKCT’s commitment to bringing you

up-to-date news, sports and weather

every day of the year...from 1947 to the

present and into the future.

From 930am ...to TALK 104.1

Want Top Dollar for your Property?

Call the Home Selling Specialists!

David and Charlene

Rabold 270.535.1895 &

270.303.9741

From Page 5

TOURISM

The National Corvette Museum sells jars of sinkhole dirt and rocks to collectors.

SUBMITTED PHOTO

By CHARLES A. MASON

[email protected]

In Warren County, rules that control development take many forms.

The idea is to make devel-opment fair and consistent while not affecting existing property owners.

Ben Peterson, executive director of the City-County Planning Commission of Warren County, said the rules are on two levels – the county’s comprehensive plan and the zoning ordi-nance. “The comprehensive plan sets the stage for the players, and then the zoning ordinance comes in and sets the script,” he said.

Both sets of rules are available online at the plan-ning commission’s website at www.warrenpc.org.

The comprehensive plan, which looks at Warren County development into the year 2030, took five years to finish, according to a report on the planning commission website. “Focus 2030 is the Comprehensive Plan for Warren County, including the cities of Bowling Green, Oakland, Plum Springs, Smiths Grove and Woodburn,” the intro-duction said.

Planning commission staff and a Citizen Comprehensive Plan Task Force put together the plan.

The second major set of documents, the Warren County zoning ordinance, sets out everything from the duties and responsibilities of the planning commission and related oversight boards to specifics of various zon-ing situations. The boards make recommendations to the applicable governments, which represent the final authority.

The planning commission is made up of a dozen citizen members. Four of the mem-bers are appointed by Warren County’s judge-executive,

four by Bowling Green’s mayor, and one each by the mayors of Oakland, Plum Springs, Smiths Grove and Woodburn. Those appointments are subject to the approval of the leg-islative bodies.

The City-County Board of Adjustments has seven cit-izen members. Three come from the county and the remaining four from the city. There is also a Warren County Code Enforcement Board, which decides whether to conduct hear-ings to determine if there has been a zoning ordinance violation. The code enforce-ment board is empowered to subpoena alleged violators, witnesses and evidence to its hearings, take testimony under oath and make find-ings of fact or issue orders to remedy violations of the zoning ordinance or county subdivision regulations.

Peterson said the compre-hensive plan represents a vision for county develop-ment and lays out goals and objectives.

“It provides more clarity and definition, a better defi-nition for land-use catego-ries, for example. It gives the developer a better playbook to shoot for and the pub-lic a better understanding,” Peterson said. “It also gives the City-County Planning Commission of Warren County a better basis for their decisions.”

There was a time in the 1990s in Warren County when the planning commis-sion used what was called “a policy-based plan.” In later years, that philosophy was changed to a map-driv-en plan. The planning com-mission is asked to look at developments in terms of whether they meet with the character and compatibility of an area, Peterson said.

The planning commission

is currently review-ing its master plan, a requirement of the state of Kentucky every five years. A subcommittee of the main group will work on that pro-cess with planning commission staff.

“One of the options they are consid-ering is to go to a hybrid,” Peterson said. The hybrid would include policies and the overall map.

“You would have the test of character and compatibil-ity with an area and also pol-icies that further define the map. This will help devel-opers based on geograph-ical areas in the county,” Peterson said.

“It helps planners, the planning commission, the public and developers. It is just one option that we are considering.”

Peterson said the rules help control the process of development, which in recent years has exploded in the city and county. Single-family housing has been a particularly hot item.

The turnaround of devel-opment projects locally is much faster than other parts of Kentucky.

Peterson said while an application before the plan-ning commission might take 90 days, a Louisville devel-oper, for example, might have to wait nine months for an approval.

The cost of development locally is also reasonable, Peterson said.

“We are the third-largest city in Kentucky, but we don’t have the third-highest fees in Kentucky,” Peterson said.

– The planning commis-sion office is at 1141 State St. and can be reached at 270-842-1953.



FR E E

Text BGKY to 88188 By April 20 th , 2017

for a FR E E 10” FR E E

PEPPERONI or SERIOUS CHEESE PIZZA You’ll receive your free pizza code right before we open.

Download the new Donato’s

App to make ordering faster

and easier than ever!

www.Donatos.com www.Donatos.com

Like us on Facebook donatosbgky

REAL ESTATE

WKU offers three real estate program options to students:

• Qualifying courses for Kentucky licensure; • Certificate; and, • Associate of Arts, (Business with Real

Estate Concentration).

These options prepare students for increasing levels of responsibility and a multitude of careers within the field of real estate.

Contact Information:

For more information on the real estate programs at WKU, please contact:

Julie Shadoan [email protected] (270) 780-2539 Tate Page Hall 256

Rules help control local development

BEN PETERSON


+Product Price - Actual retail prices are set by dealer and may vary.

Taxes, freight, setup and handling charges may be additional and may vary.

Models subject to limited warranty.

FREE

GUARANTEE

$ 200 off

Select RZT

Models *

$ 200 off

Select Z-Force Models **

FARMING The original growth business

If you were watching Super Bowl XLVII in 2013, chances are you may have seen a commercial that featured, over pictures of rural land-scapes and rugged laborers, the

voice of the late radio host Paul Harvey reciting his monologue “So God Made a Farmer.”

The memorable spot was a winner for Ram Trucks, and struck a chord with many who felt it evoked an idyllic time in the country’s agrarian past that has gone over-looked, perhaps lost to progress.

In Warren County’s diversified economy, there continues to be room for the farmer to flourish.

According to estimates from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service, Warren County wheat fields yielded 90.1 bushels per acre in 2016.

To put that in perspective, that was top yield in the state for winter wheat.

An estimated 18,800 acres were planted in winter wheat and 16,300 acres were harvest-ed, producing 1.468 million bushels.

Warren County also provides a robust growing environment for corn, with an esti-mated 33,400 acres planted and 30,800 acres harvested last year, producing 5.605 million bushels of corn.

That output translates into a yield of 182 bushels per acre, the fourth-highest corn yield in the state in 2016.

Of late, Warren County has been fertile territory for grain farmers, thanks in part to favorable weather conditions and proficient crop protection measures to stave off blight.

“We’ve had pretty good crops for four years rolling,” said Joe Duncan, a retired agri-culture instructor at Southcentral Kentucky Community and Technical College and a grain farmer who follows commodities mar-kets in Chicago. “We have the climate, a good part of the county along I-65 has pret-ty good ground that is capable of producing very good crops if we have good weather.”

The most prolific corn-growing counties in Kentucky are focused in the far western part of the state along the Ohio River, and Warren County, with its high corn yields,

acts as a gateway of sorts into the midwest-ern Corn Belt.

“There’s a big demand for ethanol and for cattle feed in the feedlots in the Corn Belt and for feed in the poultry houses in Kentucky and south and east of Kentucky,” Duncan said. “All that demand has been great, the production has been greater and with the years we’ve had weather-wise and the technology that’s available to farmers, everything has fallen into place and basical-ly we’ve had record yields.”

The cornfields that span seemingly end-less distances along the area’s less well-trav-eled roads produce a crop that supplies a number of enterprises, including Hill’s Pet Nutrition locally and Jack Daniels Distillery in Tennessee.

As the corn industry does well, so do other commodities, especially other sectors of agribusiness.

Kentucky’s poultry industry is the larg-est buyer of Kentucky-grown corn and soy-beans, said Jamie Guffey, executive director of the Kentucky Poultry Federation, which is based in Bowling Green.

“Depending on the year and the yield of corn crops, we can purchase as much as 25 to 30 percent of (the state’s) corn to feed poultry,” Guffey said. “Sometimes, every fourth row of corn you see goes to feed chickens in Kentucky.”

Champion thoroughbred horses occupy the top rung of farm animals in Kentucky – watch the Kentucky Derby any year if you want proof.

In terms of cash receipts returned to the farmer, however, poultry and eggs comprise the state’s top agricultural commodity, sur-passing the vaunted equine industry and all other commodities.

The poultry industry is also Kentucky’s top food commodity.

The USDA’s NASS survey for 2015 estimates that there were about 320 mil-lion broiler chickens populating farms in Kentucky, among the highest totals in the nation. The previous year, Kentucky had the seventh-highest broiler population.

Story by JUSTIN STORY [email protected]

“We’ve had pretty good crops for four years rolling. We have the climate, a good part of the county

along I-65 has pretty good ground that is capable of producing very good crops if we have good

weather.”

Joe Duncan

Former agriculture instructor at Southcentral Kentucky Community and Technical College

AUSTIN ANTHONY/[email protected]

Canola plants stand in 2016 on Bill Jenkins’ farm off Louisville Road.

See FARMING, 9


Also in 2015, there were 1.2794 bil-lion eggs produced on state poultry farms.

According to the Kentucky Poultry Federation, egg producers contribute about $214.7 million to the state’s economy and create 1,769 total jobs, while the broiler-breeder industry employs about 6,300 people and gen-erates more than 20,000 additional jobs in ancillary industries.

In a relatively short span of time, Kentucky has become a productive poultry state on par with Deep South states such as Alabama and Georgia that have been major players in poul-try for generations.

Guffey said that well over half of the poultry farmers who were active in Kentucky during the 1990s were primarily tobacco growers who were looking to diversify their operation.

The federal buyout of tobac-co growers in the wake of lawsuits against U.S. tobacco companies has rendered that industry a shadow of itself, and poultry has strutted admira-bly into the breach.

Guffey said that mild winters and low humidity relative to the Deep South states in the so-called Broiler Belt make Kentucky well-positioned in the poultry industry.

“About 25 percent of our product is exported overseas,” said Guffey, not-ing that roasted chicken feet and dark meat are popular snacks in Asia and South America, though they are sold at bargain-basement rates. “The thing holding back the industry is the dark meat being sold, if we open up more markets for dark meat, we can open up more sales in Kentucky ... 10 years ago, this was basically a local farm market and now there are houses with up to 20,000 birds with access to the outdoors.”

In the area around Rich Pond, the decade has seen a population boom that has resulted in the open-ing of South Warren middle and high schools, the construction of new neighborhoods and the opening of a gas station/supermarket.

Within a couple miles of the rapid development on that part of Nashville Road, Carl Chaney plugs away at a dairy farm that was established in 1940 on land his family has owned since 1888.

Locals and tourists alike have flocked to Chaney’s Dairy Barn for years to sample the many flavors of ice cream and other products the fam-ily has produced from its herd of dairy cattle.

Chaney welcomes groups on tours, saying that it is important for the pub-lic to see agriculture at work.

“Forty years ago, everybody’s

grandfolks probably lived on a farm and they actually got to touch what agriculture is all about,” Chaney said. “I saw some statistics the other day that said the average consumer is three generations removed from the farm ... a lot of people today do not really have any firsthand account of what agriculture means to the U.S. Lots of businesses are important, don’t get me wrong, but with agriculture, we’re pretty important three times a day, because without food people can’t survive.”

Amid population growth and an attendant growth in demand for food, costs have stayed relatively low.

A 2013 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics survey found that the aver-age American household spent 11 per-cent of its income on food, a smaller proportion of the household budget than was dedicated to food in previ-ous decades.

Faced with the continued demand for affordable food and also recogniz-ing that the pull of farm work may register less with current generations who have more job options, Chaney and other dairy operators have had to adapt.

Last year, Chaney purchased a robotic milker, the third dairy farm in the state to do so.

A new barn, featuring more fans, has also been built for the cows, resulting in a 20-25 percent increase in milk production, Chaney said.

“Some of my cows that I thought I would never see milk 70-80 pounds are being milked five times a day now and producing 100 pounds,” Chaney said.

The robot appears to be providing a good early return on investment, and Chaney hopes that the farm can con-tinue to be economically sustainable in a challenging environment for pro-ducers.

“It’s just beginning to be more and more difficult because milk pric-es right now are the same price they were about 20 years ago,” Chaney said. “What inflation has done to gas prices and electricity, I’m still having to produce a product for a price that I received 20 years ago with labor con-tinuing to go up.”

In broad terms, Warren County’s geography and climate, and its pop-ulation of farmers who keep track of developments in plant genetics and hybrids, results in an economic niche that has not lost its importance and is not likely to be crowded out by the manufacturing, service, health care and technology sectors.

“Kentucky has had a great histo-ry of independent farmers looking at ways to take an operation, diversify it to meet their needs and profit from it,” Guffey said.

– Follow courts reporter Justin Story on Twitter @jstorydailynews or visit bgdailynews.com.

“There’s a big demand for ethanol and for cattle feed in the feedlots in the Corn Belt and for feed in the poultry houses in Kentucky and south and east of Kentucky.

All that demand has been great, the production has been greater and with the

years we’ve had weather-wise and the technology that’s available to farmers, everything has fallen into place and basically we’ve had record yields.”

Joe Duncan

Former agriculture instructor at Southcentral Kentucky Community and Technical College

AUSTIN ANTHONY/[email protected]

A cow stands in the milking area at Chaney’s Dairy Farm.

MIRANDA PEDERSON/[email protected]

Lynn Rice of Warren County drives a grain cart in 2015 back to tractor-trailer after it is illed for Tucker Farms in Warren County.

From Page 8

FARMING

By AARON MUDD [email protected]

As they ring up customers or sweep up in the back, it’s tempting to see Ghazwan Nahedh and Wisam Asal as ordinary business owners, but that would be a mistake.

Both men, who own the Bowling Green International Grocery on Russellville Road, are Iraqi refugees who came to the U.S. fearing for their lives.

“When we decided to move, it was not an easy decision,” Asal said. “You have to give up everything. You’re going to start from zero.”

Like many of Bowling Green’s immigrants and refugees, Nahedh and Asal started their lives in America with little more than the clothes on their backs and have built a business that brings vibrance to Bowling Green.

A New American Economy report said Kentucky’s 2nd Congressional District, which includes Warren County, has as many as 22,790 immigrant residents. The group had as much as $379.7 million in spending power and paid $130 million in state and federal taxes in 2014, the report said.

Compared to native-born residents, immigrants are 6.6 percent more likely to become entrepreneurs,

according to the report. The report listed 758 immigrant entrepreneurs in the district.

Along with their store, which offers halal food for local Muslims, Nahedh and Asal work at Babylon Nights, a restaurant across the street that serves Shawarma and other Middle Eastern dishes.

Nahedh and Asal came to the U.S. in 2012 and 2010, respectively. Before then, Nahedh said they worked as interpreters and translators for the U.S. Army and gov-ernment assisting in human-itarian work delivering sup-plies to villages.

That work put his and his family’s lives at risk with his family facing the most dan-ger between 2003, after the U.S. invaded Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein’s regime, and 2011.

“We had to move many times for our safety,” he said, adding that he was shot at five or six times.

For Nahedh, the unique suffering and tragedies the Iraqi people have endured only add to the gravity of the struggle against terrorism worldwide.

“It is against humanity,” he said. “Not against Iraqis or anyone else.”

When President Donald Trump signed an execu-tive order in January that suspended travel for 90 days from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen, Nahedh saw it as a betrayal.

“Without the Iraqi sacri-fice … you will see them here in your cities,” he said, referring to the terrorists who Iraqis are still fighting

today.He wants Trump to focus

on the real threat facing America. “If he thinks about the U.S., he should not think about his interests first,” he said.

Although they work out of Bowling Green, their business often takes them to Nashville or Chicago for supplies.

Despite what they’ve been through, they’ve found more peaceful lives in Bowling Green, and Asal said it’s grown on him.

“It is not a big city, not small,” he said, and they appreciate the mild weather and easy access to other cit-ies and states.

For Kim Pu, the owner of Yangon Bistro, Bowling Green has also been a place of opportunity.

Pu, a refugee from Myanmar in Southeast Asia, came to the U.S. in 2010 after fleeing violence imposed by his homeland’s military.

In Myanmar, military pris-oners are forced to carry equipment through moun-tainous terrain with little food and no medical atten-tion. The Burmese Defense Services, or Tatmadaw, has been battling against minori-ty ethnic groups since the country became independent in 1948, according to a 2011 report from Human Rights Watch.

It’s carried out human rights violations in its mil-itary operations, including “attacks on civilian popula-tions, summary executions, torture, rape and looting, and as forced labor,” according to the report.

Although Pu managed to escape to Malaysia, where he lived and worked in restaurants for four years, his experiences lingered. For a while, he was anxious around any men wearing uniforms.

Pu first resettled in Grand Rapids, Mich., where he briefly attended culinary arts school. He moved to Bowling Green after an uncle persuaded him to help open a restaurant.

Pu feels thankful to America for the chance to move here.

“I would like to keep accepting the immigration,” he said, adding that many Myanmar refugees use the money they earn here to support impoverished fami-ly members back home.

“Immigrants are not sit-ting and spending the gov-ernment’s money,” he said.

Because of its close prox-imity to Western Kentucky University, Pu serves a lot of WKU students. Annie Ulliac, a sophomore from Edmonton, Alberta, said she’s a frequent customer.

“I think it’s delicious,” she said, while recently dining at Yangon Bistro. “I try to try something new every time.”

When Ulliac first came to study in Bowling Green, she was surprised by its interna-tional flavor.

“It really helps everyone grow a little more when they can talk to people that don’t have the same experiences as them,” she said.

– Follow education reporter Aaron Mudd on Twitter @BGDN_edbeat or visit bgdailynews.com.


Local immigrants get the job doneDAILY NEWS FILE PHOTO

Ghazwan Nahedh (right) rings up purchases in 2014 as Warren County Public Schools personnel tour his Bowling Green International Grocery on Russellville Road.

AARON MUDD/[email protected]

Diners eat in Yangon Bistro at 111 Old Morgantown Road.

Kentucky’s 2nd Congressional District has as many as 22,790 immigrant residents

Along with their store, which offers halal food for local Muslims, Nahedh and Asal work at Babylon Nights, a restaurant across the street that serves Shawarma and

other Middle Eastern dishes.

By AARON MUDD [email protected]

As she troubleshoot-ed a problem with a piece of robotic equipment at a learning lab in the Warren County Area Technology Center, Amanda Poole took a moment to reflect on how lucky she was.

“It’s nice to be working with something that’s going to be so prominent in the future,” said Poole, a senior at Warren East High School.

Poole plans to use the train-ing in robotic technology she’s getting at the center to launch a career as an electri-cal or mechanical engineer, and like the other students at the center, she’s entering an industry on the rise.

As he gives a tour of the center, Principal Eric Keeling is eager to point out a classroom for a health sciences program, a class-room where information technology is taught by an instructor who uses Skype to reach students remotely and a carpentry shop where students program Computer Numerical Control machines to use lumber to make differ-ent shapes.

When Keeling arrives in the center’s robotics lab, he points out robots contributed by Bendix and Southcentral Kentucky Community and Technical College, mentions a donation from Sun Products totaling $120,000 and notes that B&R Electrical installed wiring at no cost. Against a wall, there is a welding sim-ulator that plays almost like a video game.

“What we’re trying to do is make it as real-life as possi-ble,” Keeling said.

At the center, the students learn how to be technicians, not just equipment operators. Keeling points to a surface grinder that wasn’t running when it was donated. They fixed it in three days.

“We don’t go in and spoonfeed everything,” he said, adding students have to learn how to think on their feet and solve problems.

But students get more than just a chance to play around. The center is helping them earn industry certifications that will make them more attractive to employers after they graduate high school. Through a robotics and welding dual credit program with SKYCTC, students can earn up to one year of college credit while they’re still in high school. Keeling adds that area companies are offering to pay for a second year or offer tuition incen-tives at SKYCTC in hopes of enticing potential employ-ees.

“The beauty of it is just that there’s a huge demand for it,” he said. In just two

years of training, Keeling said, students can get jobs that pay $26 an hour.

“What they’re doing is they’re getting that head start,” said the students’ instructor, David Loveland.

The classroom Loveland teaches in, which he describes as a shrunken fac-tory, is a key part of that. Loveland said the center’s

efforts to connect students with future employers is another critical piece, noting that factory representatives will be visiting soon to inter-view the students.

“These industries are so on board,” he said.

Christian Mann, a student from WEHS, said he wasn’t always sure what kind of engineering field he wanted

to go into.“This has helped me real-

ize a little bit what each of those engineers do,” he said, adding that he settled on mechanical engineering. “We don’t get to just mess around all day.”

– Follow education reporter Aaron Mudd on Twitter @BGDN_edbeat or visit bgdailynews.com.


Bowling Green, KY • 270-843-0506

280 Three Springs Rd (Across from Bob Evans)

“Your One Stop Comfort Shoe Store & Work Boot Headquarters”

Serving

South Central Kentucky

for 55 years.

Serving

South Central Kentucky

for 55 years.

We have ALL your favorite styles!! We have ALL your favorite styles!!

Men’s, Women’s & Children’s

Shoes & Boots

Men’s, Women’s & Children’s

Shoes & Boots

Family Owned and Operated Family Owned and Operated

ROBOTICS TREND

By JUSTIN STORY [email protected]

When it comes to shepherding a local economy, leaders in government and business focus on ensuring that exist-ing employers are well-equipped to draw from a pool of

employees.Another prior-

ity leaders have is to promote the communi-ty to would-be employers who look to relocate or expand their operations.

This future-focused mindset and a stated desire to level the playing field with neighbor-ing, compet-ing states for industrial jobs drove several officials local-ly and state-wide to support so-called right-to-work legisla-

tion, which was signed into state law earlier this year.Kentucky in January became the 27th U.S. state and the

final Southern state to pass a right-to-work law, Kentucky’s version of which prohibits mandatory union membership or payment of union dues as a condition of employment and prohibits public employees from going on strike.

Similar legislation had been introduced in previous years in the Kentucky General Assembly, but failed to get a hear-ing in the state House of Representatives when it was under Democratic control.

After Republicans won a majority in the House in last year’s election, right-to-work legislation was quickly intro-duced, passing both Republican-controlled chambers and earning Gov. Matt Bevin’s signature.

Opponents of the law say it will weaken labor unions’ ability to negotiate for better wages, benefits and worker safety regulations while doing little to enhance Kentucky’s economic competitiveness.

Supporters maintain that Kentucky needs to be a right-to-work state if it wants to land industrial employers.

Warren County was at the forefront of the right-to-work movement.

The Warren County Fiscal Court passed an ordinance in 2014 attempting to establish Warren as a right-to-work county.

Neighboring counties followed suit with similar ordinanc-es, the legality of which was challenged in a federal law-suit filed by a number of Kentucky labor organizations. In November, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the county-level ordinances, and the General Assembly passed the statewide law in January.

Warren County Judge-Executive Mike Buchanon was at the forefront of right-to-work advocacy on the local level.

“Site selection experts indicate that anywhere from a third to half of all manufacturing projects do not consider Kentucky because of our right-to-work status,” Buchanon stated in a commentary that appeared in the Daily News in 2014. “Kentucky may never know how many new indus-tries crossed it off the list before going to neighboring states that do have a right-to-work law. And, as more states enact such legislation, Kentucky moves further to the bottom of the list for consideration.”

A federal appeals court eventually ruled in favor of the counties that passed right-to-work ordinances, but by that time Kentucky had already enacted its statewide law.

Now, those who had supported the legislation are hope-ful that Kentucky’s proverbial seat at the table of econom-ic development will result in more manufacturers taking notice.

“Kentucky’s disadvantage in the past has been that cer-tain industries and businesses will not even consider at the beginning of their search a state that is not right-to-work,” Simpson County Judge-Executive Jim Henderson said. “Somewhere in the world and here perhaps in the U.S. there are businesses and industries that are going to expand in the near future that are going to look at Kentucky for the first time, they will likely look within communities in Kentucky that are successful in economic development and ours is one of them, very thankfully. We’re on the radar anew in many situations.”

Henderson said that success in economic development tends to build on itself, citing the automotive company Fritz Winter’s decision in 2015 to place a $193 million foundry and mechanical machining facility in Franklin as a recent example.

Tennessee has had right-to-work laws on the books since 1947, one of the earliest states to adopt such legislation.

Simpson and other counties bordering Tennessee can be perceived by employers and site selectors to be on an even playing field now, Henderson said.

Going forward, Henderson said the county can promote its quality of life, access to workers, infrastructure and busi-ness climate to manufacturers without worrying that those assets will be overlooked in favor of another state.

“If all things are equal on the right-to-work plane, we get to stay in the game longer,” Henderson said. “We are primed for taking advantage of this policy change.”

Warren County has also had a top-flight economy in recent years, with unemployment figures routinely among the lowest in the state.

Jim Waters, president of the Bluegrass Institute, a free-market think tank, said Warren County had received nearly $1 billion in capital investment since the fiscal court passed its right-to-work ordinance.

“That is a microcosm of what we think will come to pass statewide,” Waters said. “That amount of investment dwarfs the entire decade previous ... the kind of interest that site selectors have shown in Warren County, there’s absolutely no reason to believe that same type of enthusiasm won’t be seen across the commonwealth.”

Waters cited Amazon’s announcement in January to build a $1.5 billion air cargo hub in northern Kentucky as an indi-cator that the state’s industrial economy is on an upward swing and that the new law can be a driver for additional employment opportunities locally, where it is hoped that new companies will attract new families and ancillary new jobs.

“I don’t want to give the impression that right-to-work is going to solve all of Kentucky’s economic issues, but it becomes a tipping point,” Waters said. “With right-to-work, it removes a reason for (manufacturers) to say no. ... We’ve usually been on the losing side of these oppor-tunities. We’re poised for the greatest period of economic growth that Kentucky has ever see. Amazon’s investment is the largest that’s been made since Toyota built its plant in Georgetown.”

– Follow courts reporter Justin Story on Twitter @jstorydailynews or visit bgdailynews.com.

Right-to-work comes to state

“Kentucky’s disadvantage in the past has been that certain industries

and businesses will not even consider

at the beginning of their search a state

that is not right-to-work.”

Jim Henderson

Simpson County judge-executive

DAILY NEWS FILE PHOTOS

Top: Warren East student Kelly Wright works March 15 on creating circuits at the Warren County Area Technology Center. Above left: Eric Keeling, principal of the Warren Area Technology Center at the Kentucky Transpark, speaks in 2014 after the Bowling Green Area Chamber of Commerce and nine businesses announced contributions to the center. Above right: Robotics and au-tomation engineering teacher David Loveland (second from right) helps Warren East student Amanda Poole repair a robotic arm March 15.

Students get head start toward technological education

jobs - townnewsbloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/bgdailynews... · angela blackburn of the...

Documents